The Daily Brief - May 15, 2026
Trump wraps China visit, abortion pill, Senate parliamentarian on GOP bill, and more
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Trump Wraps Up China Visit
President Trump left Beijing today after a three-day state visit to China that produced no major agreements on the issues he came to discuss.
The trip was filled with pageantry — goose-stepping soldiers, US-flag-waving schoolchildren, a private tour of a leadership compound — but Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping ended their talks without breakthroughs on trade, tariffs, artificial intelligence, or the US-Iran war, the topics the White House officials had said were on the agenda. Both leaders called the visit a success.
On Iran, China’s foreign ministry said Beijing wants the Strait of Hormuz reopened as soon as possible and the war ended, but offered no specifics on how it would help.
SCOTUS Keeps Abortion Pill Available by Mail, for Now
The Supreme Court ruled yesterday that the abortion pill mifepristone can continue to be prescribed by telehealth and sent through the mail while a lawsuit challenging that access plays out in lower courts.
The unsigned order paused a May 1 decision from the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals that had required the drug to be dispensed only in person at a clinic. The court did not explain its reasoning or disclose the vote count. Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito dissented.
Mifepristone is used in nearly two-thirds of US medication abortions. The drug’s manufacturers, Danco Laboratories and GenBioPro, brought the emergency appeal to the Supreme Court after the Fifth Circuit’s ruling.
Louisiana sued the FDA over its 2023 rule allowing mifepristone to be prescribed without an in-person visit, arguing the policy undermines the state’s near-total abortion ban. The case now returns to the Fifth Circuit for full arguments.
In his dissent, Thomas wrote that the drugmakers “are not entitled to a stay of an adverse court order based on lost profits from their criminal enterprise.” Alito wrote that “what is at stake is the perpetration of a scheme to undermine our decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization,” the 2022 ruling he authored that overturned the constitutional right to abortion.
Trump Set to Drop IRS Lawsuit in Exchange for $1.7B Fund for Allies
President Trump is expected to drop his $10 billion lawsuit against the IRS in exchange for a public apology from the agency for the leak of his personal and business tax records. As a condition of dropping the lawsuit, Trump is demanding that the settlement create a new $1.7 billion fund to pay Trump’s political allies who claim they were targeted by the Biden administration.
The fund would draw money from the Treasury Department’s Judgment Fund, a pool that pays out court judgments and settlements against the federal government and does not require new approval from Congress. A commission set up to oversee the fund would have sole authority to award money to anyone who claims they were harmed by what the administration calls the Biden administration’s “weaponization” of the legal system. The commission would not be required to disclose its procedures or recipients, and Trump would be able to remove its members without cause, according to ABC News.
Trump filed the lawsuit against the IRS in January over the 2019–2020 leaks of his tax returns by a former contractor at the agency, who has since been convicted. The case has raised conflict-of-interest concerns because Trump oversees the IRS while suing it. Last month, a federal judge ordered Trump and the Justice Department to justify by next week why the case should proceed since the two parties did not actually seem to be on opposite sides, which is usually required for a case to go forward. The proposed settlement would end the lawsuit before the court rules on that question.
Newsbreak
The Invention of Wings tells the story of two unforgettable American women. Hetty “Handful” Grimke, an enslaved girl in early nineteenth century Charleston, yearns for life beyond the suffocating walls that enclose her within the wealthy Grimke household. The Grimke’s daughter, Sarah, has known from an early age she is meant to do something large in the world, but she is hemmed in by the limits imposed on women. Inspired by real-life abolitionist Sarah Grimke, this sweeping novel begins on her eleventh birthday, when she is given ownership of ten year old Handful. The story follows their journeys over the next thirty-five years, as both strive for a life of their own and dramatically shape each other’s destinies.
Senate’s Rule-Keeper Blocks Pieces of GOP Immigration Funding Bill
Senate Republicans’ plan to fund ICE and Customs and Border Protection has stalled after the chamber’s nonpartisan rules referee found that key parts of the $72 billion package don’t qualify for the fast-track process Republicans were trying to use.
The package is the second half of a two-step plan to fund immigration enforcement. The first half — funding for the rest of the Department of Homeland Security — passed last month. That funding ended a 75-day government shutdown that began when Senate Democrats refused to provide the votes to fund ICE and CBP without new restrictions on federal immigration agents.
To fund those agencies, Republicans had structured the second immigration funding bill to pass through reconciliation, a process that lets certain budget-related legislation clear the Senate with 51 votes instead of the 60 normally needed to overcome a filibuster.
Senate parliamentarian Elizabeth MacDonough advises the parties on whether bills follow Senate rules, and her opinions effectively decide what can move forward. Provisions she flags as out of bounds can still be voted on, but they need 60 votes — a threshold Republicans, who hold 53 seats, cannot meet without Democratic support.
MacDonough found that four sections of the bill violated rules, including the main Border Patrol funding section and a $2.5 billion block of additional Homeland Security appropriations, according to Senate Budget Committee Democrats.
Cuba’s Power Grid Fails Again as CIA Director Visits Havana
Cuba’s national power grid suffered another major collapse yesterday, leaving the island’s eastern provinces in the dark and extending rolling blackouts in Havana amidst a US fuel blockade. The outages are affecting hospitals, water systems, transportation and food storage for the island’s 10 million people, and protests broke out in Havana on Wednesday after blackouts stretched past 24 hours in some neighborhoods.
Cuba relies heavily on imported fuel from Venezuela, its main supplier. Oil imports from Venezuela have fallen sharply under US sanctions. Earlier this year, Trump effectively cut off the island’s fuel imports by threatening sanctions on any country that ships oil to Cuba. The result has been an effective blockade that has left Cuba without foreign oil for more than four months.
Meanwhile, CIA Director John Ratcliffe traveled to Havana yesterday and met with Cuban government officials as well as Raúl Guillermo “Raulito” Rodríguez Castro, the grandson of former leader Raúl Castro, according to US and Cuban officials. A CIA official said the talks focused on intelligence cooperation, economic stability and regional security issues.
CDC: No Hantavirus Cases in US
CDC said yesterday that there are no confirmed US cases of Andes hantavirus linked to an outbreak aboard the cruise ship MV Hondius that has killed three people. Earlier this month, the agency reported one American passenger had tested positive.
That passenger, a 69-year-old Oregon oncologist who developed flu-like symptoms aboard the ship and tested “faintly positive” on an initial test, has since tested negative on follow-up testing. Doctors at the University of Nebraska Medical Center, where he had been isolated in the biocontainment unit, said the initial result was likely a false positive. He has since been moved out of biocontainment and into quarantine with other passengers.
The CDC said yesterday it is monitoring 41 people for possible exposure. That includes 16 American passengers from the cruise ship being held in quarantine at the Nebraska medical center, and two others sent to Atlanta for further assessment and care. The CDC is encouraging the quarantined passengers to remain in the facility through the end of the 42-day incubation period.
The Andes strain is the only known hantavirus that can spread from person to person, usually through close and prolonged contact. Most hantavirus infections, by contrast, spread through exposure to infected rodent urine, droppings or saliva.
The payoff to January 6th rioters is a way of recruiting others to participate in future violence on Trump's behalf.